Monthly Archives: July 2017

A group of French filmmakers sought to counter the despair provoked by climate change and the ongoing Sixth Extinction by finding examples that show how the world could survive in a better, sustainable way – sort of a filmic version of John Lennon’s Imagine. I can’t say it was convincing – more on that in [...]

Dunkirk is an unpleasant assault on the senses, the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan stretched out for two hours. We see death by suicide, by being shot in the back, burned at sea, strafed from the air, blown up on the sand, drowned in vessel hold, shot from the sky, machine-gunned at close range, [...]

Every summer needs a fun and innocent rom-com, and The Big Sick is it for 2017, with the crazily adorable Zoe Kazan filling the Julia Roberts/Meg Ryan role. The more recognizable Ray Romano and Holly Hunter are idiosyncratically good as Emily's parents, while the Pakistani family of Kumail (who plays himself!) is just as enjoyable [...]

This documentary tackled a fascinating subject - water rights in California - but left me with more questions than answers. It approached the topic from several different angles but never tied them together. The people of East Porterville had no running water for three years. Something called the Monterey Amendments set water allocations behind closed [...]

A movie about a plucky woman in wartime Britain making a movie about a plucky woman in wartime Britain, graced with the ever-pleasant figures of Bill Nighy and Gemma Arterton. The period details seemed just right, as was the mixture of wartime horror and cinema fantasy.

This seems to be the buzz-generator of early summer, but that speaks more to the paucity of good movies than BD's merits. Anson Elgort's moves and cool are appealing, and Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm are wonderfully scary bad guys, but that's about it. The soundtrack is loud and unrelenting but doesn't make much sense, [...]